Daschle’s out — time to turn left on healthcare czar

I never thought Tom Daschle was a great choice for health secretary or President Barack Obama’s so-called “healthcare czar” — too many ties to too many lobbyists and too much time spent on Capitol Hill maintaining the status quo.

But I wasn’t opposed to the nomination, either, viewing his access to his former colleagues as something that might allow him to grease the wheels of reform.

Then came the tax problems and that limo and now he’s out. The problem is that his appointment was part of a larger ideological inertia in the Obama camp, one that has resulted in far too many Clinton hands making their returns at the expense of more populist Democrats.

David Sirota nails it with this post today on Leo Hindery, a business leader and Democratic fundraiser that was “one of the few business leaders to use his wealth to challenge deregulation, corporate trade deals and anti-worker policies.” Sirota says he “was blacklisted by the Obama administration”

because he dared to clash with the same Wall Street Democrats whose corporate-backed policies destroyed the economy.

Sirota goes on to remind us that

the Hindrey scalping is only one chapter in what has been one long narrative arc whereby economic progressives have been deliberatelyy shut out of top administration jobs. Amid a stable of eminently qualified and well-respected progressives like James Galbraith, Robert Reich, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Larry Mishel, Obama has chosen Rubin sycophants like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner to run the economy – the same Larry Summers who pushed the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act, the same Geithner who masterminded the kleptocratic bank bailout, the same duo whose claim to fame is their personal connections to Rubin, a disgraced Citigroup executive at the center of the current meltdown. Indeed, the only movement progressive in a top economic position is Jared Bernstein, and he was relegated to an amorphous job in the Vice President’s office.

And now we see that’s not an accident. Though Obama won states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana on promises to challenge Wall Street and reform our trade policies, there has been a deliberate and calculated effort to stack the administration with the very Wall Street Democrats who created the problems he lamented, and shun those who have been fighting the good fight.

This may explain the president’s seemingly incomprehensible strategy on the stimulus, one that has him coddling Rrepublicans when he should be getting in their face and spending his political capital. After all, he is the guy with the high approval ratings.

But then, the approach he outlined in his campaign and the months since his victory does not match with the philosophy espoused over the years by Larry Summers.

The Daschle resignation offers Obama a chance to right (actually, to left) the ship, giving him an opportunity to appoint someone committed to a single-payer healthcare plan and not the noodling around the edges proposals being pushed.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet